“If only everyone could afford therapy, the whole world would be healed,” announces Jonathan Groff, who plays an actor-caterer soon-to-be-father, and also plays a closeted homosexual in Craig Lucas’ The Singing Forest. The befuddling three-hour epic transports us from Y2K New York to Nazi-occupied Vienna and back again, but we’re going to need a little more than psychobabble and subtext to support grandiose claims and switches in time.
Led by entertainment veteran Olympia Dukakis, the actors in The Singing Forest try their best to unearth Lucas’ challenging material. With scathing wit and an Austrian accent, Dukakis plays Loë, the addled matriarch who has suffered from seeing too much and running away for too long. The play unfolds as she makes amends with her past and present.
To say much more on the plot would be difficult given the word constraints of this review. But I’ll indulge in order to set the scene. When the show opens, the audience meets Loë, who was once a psychologist and who has an estranged daughter, Bertha, and son, Oliver (also a therapist). Her son is dating Laszlo and is friends with Shar (another shrink), who used to date Laszlo but is now infatuated with a patient named Gray.
Meanwhile, Gray is working for Jules Ahmad, the rich, reclusive son of Loë’s daughter. Unaware of Jules’ relationship to Loë, Gray connects with his boss’ grandmother by dialing a sex hotline. And all this occurs within the first 30 minutes.
Psychoanalysis isn’t a new theme for Lucas, who has made a name for himself by probing the human mind, but it doesn’t work here. Because everyone requires a mediator to unlock his or her deepest emotions, Lucas often puts the action on hold.
But even with cathartic breaks—the most affecting of which occurs during the phone “chat” between strangers Gray (Groff) and Loë—characters’ motives aren’t always clear. Plot points are marred by Freudian over-analysis, and relationships are so contrived that you should forget what you’ve heard about six degrees of separation—here, there are maybe only three.
Whether abrupt breaks in tone are the fault of Lucas or director Mark Wing-Davey isn’t entirely clear. Double-casting leads to a farcical romp at the end of Act II that begins with a “Who’s On First?” bit between Oliver and Shar. It then moves to a scene reminiscent of the recent revival of Boeing Boeing, where characters are hiding behind doors to avoid disastrous meetings. Finally, it finishes as a dream sequence, which is extremely affecting, much like watching the final harrowing chorus of “Willkommen” in Cabaret.
Nevertheless, the cast executes the tragicomedy with deftness. Special mention should be given to Groff, who moves seamlessly between soul-searching actor and Loë’s well-meaning brother. And Randy Harrison (Laszlo) pulls a terrifying Jekyll and Hyde swap to play a violent Nazi guard. John McDermott’s scenic design is brilliantly attuned to these shifts in time and space. Filled with everything from espresso machines to chandeliers, this treasure trove of a set serves the action well.
The Singing Forest plays out as a tangled trilogy of ancestral stories and therapy sessions. There’s some poignant material here, but it’s often botched by the production’s highfalutin aims.
The Singing Forest plays at The Public Theater until May 17. The Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette St. (just below Astor Place). Rush tickets are $20 one hour before curtain and are subject to availability.
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